Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology

Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) Fosters Technology Entrepreneurship in Africa with NetSuite.org

To manage more than $20 million in funding for its unique start-up accelerator programme in Africa, Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) needed more robust financial processes than Excel could provide. Manual processes were error-prone and reporting was time-consuming, making everything from accessing documentation for annual audits to providing timely reporting to the nonprofit’s parent company—the Meltwater Group—difficult.

Company

Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST)

Location

Accra, Ghana

Industry

Nonprofit

SYSTEM REPLACED

Excel

NETSUITE PRODUCTS IMPLEMENTED

“The time savings with NetSuite have been phenomenal. Before, our parent company would get month-old reports—now we have real-time visibility and the data we need to make decisions.”
Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology

Automated Processes Fosters Focus on Mission

Better visibility, timely reporting

Discounted software provided through NetSuite.org in 2012 automates management of student and employee records, financials and marketing processes. With better visibility into expenses, MEST can make informed, cost-saving decisions on cafeteria operations, diesel fuel and other operational outlays, and focus time and resources on its students.

Improved efficiency, streamlined operations

Business efficiency has improved by 50 percent and audit time has been reduced from more than a month to a few hours. Instead of providing its parent company a month-old view into finances, MEST has real-time access to data for timely reporting.

Success breeds success

MEST plans to expand its use of NetSuite to gain more efficiencies and further empower its mission—educating 400+ young African entrepreneurs since 2008 and investing over $9million in 35 startups, many of which also use free and discounted software from NetSuite.org.